New Youth Survey Allows Us to See Disparities

What is the Cortland Youth Survey? 

Every year since 2002, RHI has surveyed 7th-12th grade students in Cortland County about substance use behaviors and risk and protective factors that predict adolescent problem behaviors using the validated survey tool: New York State PFS Youth Survey.

Since 2019, every school district in the county has participated in the survey with 1,600-2,000 students participating each year. Surveys are checked for validity and reliability prior to being included in the yearly sample received by RHI.

2 full-time epidemiologists analyze and visualize the data to

• Assess risk and protective factors related to social, mental, and physical health 

• Examine disparities related to factors like race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation

• Share survey data via interactive, online dashboards and targeted disparity reports

Benefits–Local Data for Local Impact

As a community, we use the Youth Survey data to drive our priorities and programming. The Youth Survey shows us what the most prevalent social, mental, and physical health challenges are and what groups have the greatest need. We can then work together to better serve those groups, improve their support systems and protective factors, and write grant applications for more funding to support these efforts. The Youth Survey data has been used in the development of the Cortland County Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan (CHA and CHIP) with the Department of Health, as well as other community agencies. We’ve even used the data to support evidence-based social norming and social marketing campaigns. The Youth Survey data can then be used to evaluate the impact of these efforts by comparing data year-to-year. 

RHI has also built out dashboards for each participating school to be able to review their own individual data. Each school district is provided their individual school data to incorporate into their planning as they see fit. Other agencies in the community, such as the Health Department and Cortland Prevention Resources, have used the data for reporting requirements and to identify health needs in the community for the Community Health Assessment.

Evolving Data Collection–A New Youth Survey

Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, we are using a new survey instrument. We worked with a consultant–Dan Webb, of Catalyst Insights–to develop this new survey to better match the evolving needs of youth in rural New York. The new survey is focused on more holistic health behaviors, not just substance use prevention. That means that we’re starting to collect more data about health factors like 

• Sleep

• Nutrition

• Physical activity

• Social connections

• Social media use

• Disabilities

• Gun access

• Mental health support

At the same time that we added questions about all these factors, we dropped about 40 questions. We wanted to ensure that the survey is still easy to take and that we still get a good response rate, even though some of the new questions are more complex (like the ones that get at disabilities). In 2023, the first instance of the new survey, we had 1600 students complete the survey. 

New Communities and Regional Data

Looking forward, we hope to work with neighboring counties to administer the same survey at the same time of year to collect regional data that can be compared to better understand regional disparities. This will be useful for understanding trends that extend beyond just Cortland County, but will also help us better partner with neighboring communities for funding to support the people who need it most. Often, competitive grants for social services only have one award for a wide geographic area, sometimes several counties. If we have data about Cortland and neighboring counties, we can coordinate on larger, more competitive grants to bring in more resources and build regional networks of people doing similar work.

Key Findings from 2023

The 2023 Cortland County Youth Survey Report is now available on our Partner Portal, where you can access previous years’ reports as well.

Read about our design process for the new Youth Survey Report here.